HEADLINES

Nick Folk

Jets Sign Randy Bullock; Nick Folk To IR

November 10th, 2015 at 12:41pm CST by Luke Adams

12:41pm: The Jets have made the move official, signing Bullock and placing Folk on IR to accommodate the move. Unless he struggles, Bullock figures to handle kicking duties for the team for the rest of the season.

12:07pm: With Nick Folk unable to kick for the Jets, the team will sign Randy Bullock in preparation for this Thursday’s game against Buffalo, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Bullock was one of four veteran free agents to work out for New York yesterday, with Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports suggesting at the time that the former Texans kicker was the odds-on favorite to replace Folk.

Bullock, who turns 26 next month, had been the Texans’ kicker since the 2013 season, making 74.3% of his field goals in his rookie year before bumping up that mark to 85.7% in 2014. However, he was inconsistent through three weeks this season, missing a 43-yard field goal and a pair of extra points, which resulted in his release.

Since being waived by the Texans, Bullock has been very busy, working out for the Steelers, Buccaneers, Saints, Jaguars, and Cardinals before this week’s audition for the Jets. Bullock, who has a Houston connection to former Texans executive – and current Jets GM – Mike Maccagnan, beat out Garrett Hartley, Kyle Brindza, and Billy Cundiff for the job, and could hang onto it for a few weeks, with Folk expected to miss multiple games.

Jets Audition Bullock, Hartley, Other Kickers

November 9th, 2015 at 4:21pm CST by Luke Adams

4:21pm: Coach Todd Bowles told reporters that Folk is expected to be sidelined for 4-6 weeks (via Brian Costello of the New York Post on Twitter).

3:49pm: With Nick Folk expected to be sidelined for Thursday’s game against the Bills due to a quad injury, the Jets brought in four kickers to work out for them today, tweets Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports.

Connor Hughes of the Journal Inquirer tweeted earlier today that Billy Cundiff was among that group of free agent kickers getting a look from the Jets, and Brian Costello of the New York Post fills out the rest of the list, tweeting that Randy Bullock, Garrett Hartley, and Kyle Brindza also auditioned. In Garafolo’s view, Bullock is the favorite to sign with New York to replace Folk.

As for how long Bullock – or another new kicker – would stick with the team, Costello (Twitter link) hears from a source that Folk is expected to be sidelined for at least four weeks due to his leg injury. If that’s the case, it appears IR would be a possibility for him, since the club may be hesitant to carry multiple kickers on its roster for upwards of a month.

Three of the four kickers who tried out for the Jets today spent time with another team this season, with Bullock losing the job in Houston, Brindza being replaced in Tampa Bay, and Cundiff briefly handling kickoffs in Buffalo. Hartley last served as the Browns’ kicker to close out the 2014 campaign.

Injury Updates: Hankins, Folk, Hicks, Ware

November 9th, 2015 at 2:26pm CST by Luke Adams

As is often the case on Mondays during the NFL season, there have already been multiple reports of season-ending injuries to key players for contending teams, with the Patriots losing running back Dion Lewis to a torn ACL, and the Colts placing defensive lineman Henry Anderson on IR due to the same injury. Here are a few more of Monday’s latest noteworthy injury updates from around the NFL:

  • Giants head coach Tom Coughlin confirmed today that defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins will undergo surgery for a torn pectoral, ending his season, per Dan Graziano of ESPN.com (Twitter link). While New York’s defensive line got a boost this weekend with the return of Jason Pierre-Paul, Hankins’ season-ending injury is another step back.
  • Jets kicker Nick Folk has a quadriceps strain, and isn’t expected to play this Thursday against the Bills, a league source tells Adam Caplan of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Connor Hughes of the Journal Inquirer tweets that Billy Cundiff will be among the kickers getting a workout from the Jets as they seek a short-term replacement for Folk.
  • The Eagles‘ preliminary diagnosis of the pectoral injury suffered by Jordan Hicks suggests the linebacker should only miss two to four weeks, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. The team is awaiting the MRI results to confirm that diagnosis.
  • The Falcons also got good news regarding defensive tackle Tyson Jackson, whose rib injury is a contusion, rather than a fracture, according to Rapoport (via Twitter).
  • After re-aggravating his back injury, Broncos pass rusher DeMarcus Ware is expected to miss the next two to four weeks or so, tweets Rapoport.
  • Bills defensive tackle Kyle Williams is expected to miss the team’s next two games, a league source tells Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News (Twitter link).
  • The Ravens announced today that second-year defensive end Brent Urban has been cleared to return to practice. Urban, who began the season on injured reserve with the designation to return, can now be activated within the next three weeks to avoid landing on season-ending IR.

East Notes: Hardy, Folk, Patriots, JPP

November 9th, 2015 at 8:52am CST by Luke Adams

With the Cowboys‘ decision to carry Greg Hardy on their roster still under scrutiny, head coach Jason Garrett offered a statement to reporters on Sunday, including Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com, explaining why the club was willing to sign Hardy.

“We as an organization, we don’t condone domestic violence. We take the issue very, very seriously,” Garrett said. “We knew when we signed Greg Hardy there would be some criticism that came with that. We laid out expectations for him right from the start. We decided that we were going to give him a second chance but in doing so the expectations and standards would be very clear to him, how he and really everybody else is supposed to conduct themselves on the football and off the football field. … He knows what the expectations and standards are and we’re going to hold him accountable to those.”

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones also reiterated his support for Hardy, repeatedly stressing – as Garrett did – that the team wanted to give the former Panthers defensive end “a second chance” (video link via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram). While Dallas may be willing to provide Hardy that second chance because of his ability on the field, the team lost again on Sunday night, falling to 0-4 with Hardy in the lineup.

Here’s more from around the NFL’s East divisions:

  • Jets kicker Nick Folk is set to undergo an MRI on Monday afternoon to determine the severity of his quad injury, which kept him from attempting extra points or field goals on Sunday, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com. If Folk is unable to play this Thursday, New York figures to sign a new kicker within the next couple days.
  • Jim McBride and Michael Whitmer of the Boston Globe round up several key Patriots-related news items from Sunday, touching on injuries sustained by running back Dion Lewis and tackle Sebastian Vollmer. Within the piece, the duo also notes that Patriots president Jonathan Kraft believes that the idea of expanding the IR-DTR rules to accommodate more than one player per team “may not be a bad idea.”
  • Following his first game back since injuring his hand in an offseason fireworks accident, Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul admitted that he was “a little rusty.” However, as Dan Graziano of ESPN.com notes, JPP injected some life into the team’s pass rush, particularly in the fourth quarter.

AFC Notes: Folk, Gilbert, Pryor, Ravens

September 12th, 2015 at 2:39pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Jets entered the day with the second-least amount of cap space in the league, but an adjustment to their kicker’s salary will give them some breathing room.

Nick Folk agreed to convert $1.78MM of his $2.5MM base salary into a signing bonus, freeing up more than $1.18MM in cap space, Field Yates of ESPN.com reports (on Twitter). This leaves the Jets with just more than $2.17MM worth of space heading into the season; they previously had just $985K, which was ahead of only the Saints’ $465K +, according to OverTheCap.

Folk enters the season with a $1.46MM cap number.

Here is some news from around the AFC, with Week 1 approaching for 30 teams.

  • Justin Gilbert‘s road-rage incident won’t affect his status for Sunday, but the strained hip flexor the second-year Browns cornerback suffered Aug. 18 might, notes Mary Kay Kabot of Cleveland.com.
  • Recently cut from the Browns after initially making the roster out of the preseason, Terrelle Pryor will work out for two teams this week, according to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. The former Ohio State and Raiders quarterback will do so as a receiver for both teams, who were not named in the report.
  • Ravens rookie defensive tackle Carl Davis will replace Timmy Jernigan in the starting lineup against the Broncos due to Jernigan’s doubtful status due to a right knee injury, Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com reports. Hensley rates Davis, a third-round pick, as the team’s most impressive rookie thus far.
  • Baltimore has also ruled out Breshad Perriman and Lorenzo Taliaferro, per Hensley.

Nick Folk Re-Signs With Jets

March 11th, 2014 at 5:50pm CST by Zachary Links

5:50pm: Folk got $12MM over four years with $2.1MM guaranteed, tweets Joel Corry of CBSSports.com. His ’14 cap number is $3.6MM, a small increase over the ~$3.5MM it was with the franchise tag.

4:36pm: The Jets have re-signed kicker Nick Folk to a multi-year deal, according to Randy Lange of NewYorkJets.com.

Folk, who hit with the franchise tag in late February, had his his best season in a long time in 2013, hitting game-winning field goals in the season opener against Tampa Bay, on the road against Atlanta, and at home in overtime against New England. He remains among the NFL’s top three most accurate fourth-quarter kickers of the past 24 seasons, with his 92.2% career rate (47-for-51) trailing only Stephen Gostkowski (96.9%) and Denver’s Matt Prater (94.0%).

Jets Use Franchise Tag On Nick Folk

February 28th, 2014 at 3:11pm CST by Luke Adams

The Jets have officially placed their franchise tag on Nick Folk, the team announced today in a press release. The exact franchise figure for kickers isn’t known yet, but it figures to be in the neighborhood of $3.4MM. That would represent a sizable raise for Folk, who earned $780K in 2013.

In addition to making all 27 of his extra-point tries in 2013, Folk converted on 33 of 36 field goal attempts, including three game-winners. His 91.7% rate for the season was a career-high, and the first time since 2008 that his conversion rate was higher than 80%.

As Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News points out (via Twitter), no kickers received the franchise tag a year ago, but five kickers were designated as franchise players in 2012. The tag can be appealing for teams with free agent kickers, since the salary is so modest.